The annual Bali Arts festival presented the classical gambuh dance drama during one of its sessions, offering art and dance lovers a rare opportunity to see this extraordinary performance art.
Old steps: Two elderly dancers from Pucung village perform the gambuh dance during the Bali Arts Festival at the Denpasar Art Center. The dance faces extinction due to lack of interest among youths.
Around 17 artists of the Pacung Dance troupe from Buleleng regency performed gambuh, the oldest known Balinese dance.
The dance drama usually tells tales of wars and rivalries within the Javanese Majapahit Kingdom.
Prince Panji features as a Majapahit war hero, a prince and a fine dancer.
In each episode of the gambuh story, Prince Panji is the central character who loses and finds his beloved princess. It was thrilling to watch the performance of senior dancers of the gambuh troupe from Pacung village.
I Wayan Dibya, a professor of dance at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) Denpasar, commented that not many gambuh dance troupes survive in the modern era. “The performance of the gambuh dance drama is becoming extinct on Balinese dance and theater stages due to difficulties in training and maintaining interest among young people to become dancers and gamelan performers,” he said.
Gambuh dance theater, Dibya explained, strongly influenced the styles and dance movements of more contemporary dance forms like legong dance and wayang wong masked dance drama.
Gambuh originated in East Javanese Majapahit courts and entered Bali between the late 15th and early 16th century.
“Many people, especially the younger generation, will find it hard to comprehend the dance and drama’s story told in archaic Javanese literary language of Kawi,” Dibya pointed out.
The musical structure of gambuh gamelan is also formal and complicated with yard-long flutes, two-stringed rebab, drums and old Javanese percussion instruments.
There are only 12 gambuh troupes in Bali today, including the troupe from Pacung village. The existence of gambuh dances vary from place to place.
In places such as Pacung village and Pendungan village in Denpasar, gambuh dance is considered sacred and is only performed during major religious or temple ceremonies. In other places, gambuh is considered as just another Balinese performance art.
“In the past, the performance of gambuh dance theater was the symbol of glory for all royal kingdoms in Bali,” Dibya added.
Regeneration and language handicaps have prevented the common people from watching and understanding gambuh performances.
In most gambuh troupes, dancers are in their late 40s to 60s, “the youngest dancer in our troupe is in his 40s,” said 64-year old dancer Made Maniarsa, who joined the troupe when in 1971, aged 25.
Performing gambuh is a source of pride for many dancers in Pacung. “It is a form of our religious activity to dedicate the dance to the gods,” said Maniarsa, the father of five children, who performs gambuh every six months at the holy temple of Ulun Sui.
He admitted it was difficult to encourage his five children to follow his path as gambuh dancer.
“Mastering Kawi language is the biggest obstacle for young aspiring dancers to join gambuh troupes”.
The temple’s attendant low-Hindu Priest Mangku I Ketut Karba also added that gambuh dancers must come from a specific family line.
“We have tried to recruit young dancers from other villages, but when they wanted to perform at the temple, events worked against them, such as sudden rain, which prevented them from performing at the temple.”
Despite the slow recruitment process, Mangku Karba was optimistic that someday the village’s young dancers would be interested in joining the troupe.
“Gambuh is performed for the gods, therefore I strongly believe that the dance will never disappear,” Karba said.
Dibya, on the other hand, suggested that gambuh troupes be given a good chance to perform in many art events.
“We have to instill a sense of pride in our young artists to continue performing gambuh and to encourage them to learn the Kawi language,” he said.
